The Pavement Shines Like Silver
by our dancing days
Summary: "Sometimes, you think it is something to do with halos and paintbrushes and the way she smiles when she's sad." All Lucy wants is immortality. / a next-gen one-shot.


**Title**: The Pavement Shines Like Silver

**Summary: **"Sometimes, you think it is something to do with halos and paintbrushes and the way she smiles when she's sad." All Lucy wants is immortality. / a next-gen one-shot.

**Warnings: **Incest, cousincest, het, femslash, mental disorders, hints of substance abuse and suicide.

**Notes: **This was written in honour of Camp Potter, and the activity is _Tech Discovery. _Also known as: write a one-shot about Lucy Weasley. Naturally, there are a hefty number of warnings for this piece, but please, please, _please _don't let that turn you away. For now, I sincerely hope you enjoy!

* * *

"_In the darkness, the trees are full of starlight and all I see is him and me forever and forever." - _On My Own, _Les Misérables._

* * *

(ii)

Victoire is _gorgeous. _

She is flawed, of course - her hair isn't as perfectly straight as she likes to think, and her front teeth are crooked, and she still gets acne on her chin. And she loves Teddy, sweetie - that's one flaw you're never really going to see past.

But who cares? She is Victoire Weasley and she has never been anything but golden.

And she is golden. Her hair is a halo and her eyes sparkle like streetlights. She is full of starlight and whispers and good girls gone bad.

And oh, darling, are you jealous?

How sad.

This is what happens, baby doll, when things don't go exactly your way. This is what happens when you start losing faith. You are left with streetlights and starlight and cigarette smoke, choking on your beliefs and waiting for them to save you. (They're not going to save you.) So now have to live with the consequences of being second best.

(Everyone is second best to Victoire fucking Weasley.)

Sometimes, you think it is something to do with halos and paintbrushes and the way she smiles when she's sad. You think maybe you have never stopped thinking about streetlights and gold and you think maybe you don't want to.

You wonder who Lucy Weasley was and exactly how long she lived before you took her place.

You wonder if you ever existed at all, or if you just burn at the heart of every little girl who ever wanted to give up. You wonder if it matters.

This is your life now, anyway, and you still wouldn't trade it for the world because she still visits, you know. She still strokes your hair and grasps your wrist and even flutters her lips against your cheek to let you know she's there. You tell her you want to live forever.

Here there are no windows; no streetlights.

No gold.

For now, you bite her when she comes near you, so she hovers in the doorway, smoking a cigarette and looking for all the world like she couldn't care less.

Baby golden girl Victoire is going to think and drink herself into an early grave, and oh, sweetie, immortality comes at a cost.

* * *

(vii)

It starts when you are thirteen years old.

Victoire is - well, she is Victoire Weasley, though she prefers Delacour (don't tell Daddy). She is seventeen and ruthless and all she wants is to watch the world burn. Victoire Weasley; a devil in red high heels. Don't let her catch you.

People don't know that she is failing Transfiguration and that her favourite subject is Care of Magical Creatures.

(And the people who do know certainly aren't going to tell her.)

But, in the end, she can rule that school with her pinkie finger and fucking hell, she _knows _it, sweetie. And if you ever thought that Victoire was naive, you were wrong. She isn't Fleur Delacour's daughter for nothing, you know.

So, her seventh year and your third. How _young _you are.

You aren't exactly a _lost puppy, _sugar; more like a puppet. She likes to pluck your strings and hang you in the sunlight to watch you melt.

You think you love her.

(Maybe, once.)

But then Teddy - dear old Teddy, almost a member of the family - has to go and knock sweet old Victoire up. You remember her crying to you, leaning into your shoulder and clutching her stomach. You remember feeling sick and not much else.

The stone steps are cold and the pavement shines like silver, but the beat of your heart is like a fire raging in your chest, and you think, _this is what they meant when they said the Weasley girls are fiery. _

This is what they meant when they said you were going to burn.

"Luce," she whispers, breath soft against your neck and leg brushing against yours. "Lucy, I'm scared."

_So am I, _you think.

You don't know what you are to her, but at the moment she is your everything - the way she strokes your hair reminds you of a mother you never had; her fingertips clench around your wrist like a child you'll never have; and her lips caress your cheek like the lover you want, someday.

(And this is the way your world ends.)

"I don't love him," she tells you, all parted lips and stained mascara - she looks beautiful in the starlight and you _hate _her.

"I know," you say, and she laughs, tinkering and bittersweet. She shakes her head.

"Somehow, I hope you don't," she replies with a twist of her lips that is more animal than human. And then she murmurs about her plan - how they'll tell Mummy and Daddy that her and Teddy have been going out for years, secretly, and they're going to do the whole white wedding, Luce, the whole Weasley extravaganza. They'll be so blinded with love, she says, that no one will think otherwise.

It's going to be gorgeous, Lucy, don't you think?

_Gorgeous, _you think.

"But you don't love him," you remind her, and this time her smile is harsh.

"That's not really the point, is it?"

* * *

(vi)

You are fourteen when you capture Louis Weasley in a broom closet between Transfiguration and the Gryffindor common room. You still haven't quenched that fire and it purrs inside you, itching for starlight and streetlights and people you can't have.

This is the fire they talk about.

But his lips are softer than you thought they would be, darling, and you are entranced - there is something about this boy and that smile that makes you fall a little in love. It's the arch of his cheekbones and the space between his top and bottom lip that makes you think of home.

You run a finger down his cheek and think that you could call his eyes _shimmering _(like streetlights and cigarette smoke); and you could create masterpieces out of his smile; and you think that his fingertips could play you like a violin string.

You think you could just _be. _

And then he presses a kiss to your forehead and the delusion is shattered.

"What - Louis, what are we doing-"

He kisses your lips with a flame you don't remember, but sweetie, you _do _remember because Dominique Weasley is sixteen and as hard and beautiful as diamond and Louis has always loved things that shine like silver.

"Just a bit of fun, Luce," he says, but his eyes are soft and he is not diamond - he is water and diminuendos and he is _drowning, _Lucy.

Drip, drop, drip -

You thought you could give him a light, but all you are doing is burning yourself.

"Louis," you murmur, but this time it is more like a plea, like a prayer - and in this moment, he is like an angel. His shoulders could support his wings if he tried to fly, and his hair is so blonde that it could catch fire and give him a halo.

But you stroke his back and your fingers trickle like a stream under his school shirt, and there is an empty space between his shoulder blades.

He is no more immortal than you, my dear.

And there is still a little part of you that wants to do _more; _you want to live forever and you want your name to be whispered in the hearts of men. You want to be the tale as old as time, the one that is so warped and twisted and changed that it is almost unrecognisable, but it is still _yours. _

This fire is not made to die.

So you wrap your arms around your cousin's shoulders and your weave your fingers through his hair and make him whimper your name like prayer and you dream that you are both fairytales that don't have to end as soon as you step out of this broom cupboard.

His cheeks flush with fire and you think you could save him.

* * *

(v)

Fifteen years old, and you've never felt younger.

Dominique is not like her brother; Louis is soft and sensual and when he touches you, he is feathers and hurricanes and his kisses are staccato notes caught on tongues, making your skin like a stave. Dominique is a crescendo that has never quite reached its peak.

She throws you into the wall (and you are reminded of a puppet girl who didn't know any better) and when she kisses you, it is with that fire you know so well.

(So she _is _a Weasley girl after all.)

And one day, she will stop exploding and she won't crumble into your arms and sob into your shoulder. You're okay with that. Instead, you'll hold her ashes and press a kiss to her forehead and rub the space between her shoulders blades, never expecting to find wings there.

She's afraid of heights.

Dominique is a diamond, sculpted on this earth and born to stay here, trapped with chains and words.

She is mortal and finite and fragile and you want to breathe her in and never let her go.

Where Victoire is high heels and gold, and Louis is ballet shoes and white, Dominique fucking Weasley is combat boots and silver and never letting go.

(Sometimes you need to let go.)

In some ways, you have never loved her more than when she's choked down too many bottles of Firewhiskey and is splashing paint onto the canvas as though she doesn't have a care in the world. And this is _why _she is mortal; she is a fire that doesn't want to burn forever, it wants to explode and blind and burn and then it is perfectly content with fizzling out.

She never thinks of the bigger picture, and she doesn't need to.

Darling, she may look the part, but she is not the rebel you want her to be. She may be a little wild and a little out of touch - and I think she'll do just fine.

You thought she would be the perfect distraction, but she's the sanest of you all.

She and Louis will continue to dance around each other, of course, and it won't ever lead to anything, love; she is fire and earth and he is water and flying and it'll never happen. They'll dream, of course, but don't all children?

So for now, you're content with bruises from brick walls and fingers that grasp too tight; anything to make you feel alive and anything to make you forget -

_stroking hands and clenching fingers and lips against your cheek_

- that this is the way the world works, sweetheart.

* * *

(iv)

You are sixteen when you realise how wrong you all are.

It's summer, and the Weasley-Delacour house is brimming with red-heads and fire and as the only brunette, you've always felt a little left out. But you are squished in a bed with Dominique and she's eighteen now, and still the wrong side of gorgeous.

Your footsteps are small when you stumble downstairs in the coldness of the night, missing the warmth of your cousin's hand tapping a rhythm on your chest.

(Sugar, you miss the times when she wrapped your legs around her waist and crawled her fingers down your stomach and fluttered kisses on the inside of your thigh and made you scream _her_ name even if - even if- )

That's when you find them.

She is pressed up against the kitchen counter, all cotton shorts and barely-there bra straps and just for a second, sweetheart, you wonder if her toes are cold against the tiles or if they are so curled in pleasure that she doesn't care.

You wonder if the fire raging inside of her is enough to tell her otherwise.

He is hovering over her, arms forming a cage and you can see the outlines of his wings where they are wrapped around her back.

They could be flying.

The kiss is not a battle, or a song, but it's secretive and smooth and _sacred, _and suddenly you know what Eve tasted when she bit into the fruit in the Garden of Eden and you know exactly how loud the serpent's laugh was when he told her to do so.

And the one thing you cannot deny is that they are beautiful - her eyes are softer than they ever were when she fucked you, and his caresses are fleeting and desolate and you envy them.

They almost look like they're in love, but it is a parody; there is no romance here, in starlight and streetlights and cigarette smoke, only bitterness and could-have-beens and you almost wish that they were immortal so that they could run and never look back.

Lucy, you know not to look back.

This is not your fight.

You think that Louis and Dominique weren't supposed to be, but then again, dear, neither were you.

So you creep back upstairs, and you never tell them; the weight would be too much on your shoulders and the sky is too heavy for now. You are not Atlas, honey. You can't breathe the stars and you don't want to touch the clouds. This life is enough for you now.

(Maybe it's becoming too much.)

Quietly, you give them your blessing and in another life, you think they could've been happy. But Louis is saint and Dominique is an artist, and the surname _Weasley _might as well be the divide between heaven and earth.

(Maybe it is.)

You sleep on the floor for the rest of the holidays because you are neither a saint nor an artist, and there is no poetic justice in playing the martyr.

* * *

(iii)

Seventeen years old, Lucy, and look how you've fallen.

At thirteen, you had Victoire Weasley. And who are you kidding? You never wanted anyone else. (And all you have now is cheap booze and cigarettes because your fairytale didn't last so long after all.)

You want starlight and streetlights and cigarette smoke - you want crooked, rusty halos and gold that doesn't gleam as bright as it used to. How could you tell them that? How could you whisper into Louis' ear that his hair was the exact same shade as his sisters?

How could you murmur into Dominique's thigh that their hands could have been identical in the right light?

No, love; you couldn't.

They are still your family (and your lovers and your friends and, _dear god, _is this all you are now?) and you still love them so you refuse to burn them anymore because the scars are like fireworks on their skin, curling around their necks and pooling into the corners of their dimples and they _do not _deserve them.

Compared to you, they are so pathetically mortal that you have to handle them with care and never press too hard in case they shatter.

(Maybe Louis isn't an angel after all - maybe Dominique isn't made of diamond - and maybe Victoire-)

You are fourteen when you hear the news; Rose whispers it into your ear like a secret.

_Victoire. _

Still-born, they tell you. At first they thought her baby was alive because of the screaming that filled the room, but Victoire _knew, _they tell you sadly. She cried and she wailed and she held out her arms for her baby her baby her baby but her baby was dead, they said, before she was even alive.

You are seventeen years old when Victoire slits her wrists in your bedroom at home.

The Hogwarts Express doesn't move quick enough and by the time you reach your room, sweetie, it is too late and you know it.

- _too late too late too late -_

There is so much blood and you cradle it in your hands and oh _god, _she's dead she's dead she's dead - and this is it. This is the end of your world and the end of you and you realise that immortality is not worth a thousand years of burning.

So you take one bottle of Firewhiskey that was resting in Victoire's hand and empty it over the room. You gulp down another and shatter the glass against your bedpost so it falls on her head like glitter.

(She shines like silver.)

It takes only a breath - a cry of _SHE'S FUCKING DEAD, YOU IDIOTS, SO ARE YOU PROUD NOW? SHE'S FUCKING DEAD SHE'S DEAD SHE'S - _and the hiss of a match before the room is set on fire.

* * *

(i)

The burns are severe, they tell you. The emotional damage is worse. You won't recover use of your hands, and you will never see the world outside this padded room.

It is a sadder sentence than they think.

You don't move for two months because you _can't - _there is a physical weight on your chest pinning you to your bed, and you couldn't lift your fingers if you tried. This is your punishment, Lucy. This is your price for immortality.

The machines keep you alive, a steady hum of lost faith beside you, and darling, you wonder if you were ever a real girl at all.

There are no streetlights in this room, even though you _beg _Dominique to paint you some on the white-wash walls. She says she isn't allowed.

Louis visits and you think you punch him. You're not sure.

Your parents cry and you try to say you're sorry, but the words come out as garbled and you think you cry. Just before they leave, Mummy lights a cigarette, but her fingers shake so badly that she drops it and you briefly wonder what would happen if it set the hospital ablaze.

Daddy squishes it with the toe of his shoe and then kneels on the ground and touches your cheek and asks if you're going to be okay.

You smile instead. Or maybe you snarl.

Either way, you only get one visitor now, and you don't mind, not really. When she presses a kiss to your forehead, your room is golden and that well-known fire sparks again, just slightly, enough to make the scars hurt and your heart hurt even more.

(Your tears shine like silver.)

All you have left, now, sweetheart, is starlight and streetlights and cigarette smoke, because in the end, _Victoire didn't save you._

But her smile is sweet and her hands are cold and you kind of think mortality wouldn't be so bad after all.


End file.
